


for whither thou goest, i will go

by mirabilis



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Time Skip, atsuhina: in brazil edition, oihina brazil fling agenda is pressed here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24852823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirabilis/pseuds/mirabilis
Summary: “Do you wanna know why I came to Brazil?” Atsumu confesses.Shouyou sits back, daylight humming a soft melody. “Do I want to know?”“Probably not.”(Or: no matter where Hinata goes, Miya Atsumu has a terrible habit of following him)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 35
Kudos: 200





	for whither thou goest, i will go

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I have returned. This is the fic I've been wanting to write for a while, it was supposed to be for atsuhina week but i decided to take my time, I've done a lot of research on Brazil and Rio, I apologize if there's any inaccuracy as a warning. 
> 
> cw: the sun is mentioned alot. clown atsumu. dialouge. implied sexual content. The parts with oikawa are non-linear narrative, and the paranetheses are flashbacks. I hope you enjoy!

_“We have not touched the stars,  
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back  
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,  
not from the absence of violence, but despite  
the abundance of it.”  
― Richard Siken, Crush _

Shouyou likes a lot of things in Brazil. He likes the sun, the way it plays tag with the joints and muscles of his shoulders, whispering sacred declarations for a toned tan on a good day. He enjoys the sand ruefully sneaking up and around his feet when he draws his toes out of the water and onto land. He can fully take flight. Let the desired heat sear the bottom of his feet and smolder in adhesive bites along the edge of his sole. 

In Rio, he’s a different person. Back in Japan, he’s built on the principles of the title he was crowned. But here, sitting in the depths of a sand castle he’s built, and suddenly he’s the king. He's almost certain that here in Rio, Shouyou is practically nobody. He is somebody, to someone. He is the roommate of Pedro, or former roommate as he recently found out he will be moving into his girlfriend’s apartment in Sao Paulo. He is Shouyou Hinata, licensed on the dual apartment mortgage in his small two studio apartment facing away from the bay side of Copacabana beach. 

He has privacy, a new court of broken sand and solemn unjust in the universe’s unexplainable rotation of earth that can only be understood through the teachings of Space Science. Something Shouyou unregretfully wishes he had taken. The new scenery is something he has; he rubs his eyes harshly and makes sure he hasn't interrupted himself in a fever dream of Tamago Kake Gohan. Chopsticks gently promise the safety of the dish as they push their way into the yellow egg. Breaking over a steaming bowl of rice, Shouyou gathers the memories from the graveyard below his apartment and turns for help to uncover the memories he’d accidentally buried behind when he stepped into the new world: Rio De Janeiro. 

(“Brazil? Why would you travel so far abroad Hinata-kun?” His career advisor asked him, hands folded on the desk, bead chains looping the ear to form a pair of thinned wired glasses fitting stark on her nose. The pendulum sways, an oscillatory motion he could bashfully stare at all day until she interrupts him.)

(Shouyou folds his hand together, then unfolds them. “To explore.”)

(She drops her frames well below her hands, fingers tangle in a frenzy, the pendulum continues to move. “Hinata-kun, this isn’t an exploration, this is your future.” 

(“I know.”)

*

What do you remember in the last years of your high school career, you ask him. Too many to count he replies. Kageyama’s awkward third-year haircut that if it wasn’t for Shouyou he would’ve ended up with a bowl cut. He remembers loss, loss has confronted him too many times to count and he begins to use his toes, and before he knows it, he uses the world around cracking in clay shards in unspeakable terms to enumerate. 

He remembers his opponents, it’s hard not to, when you face hundreds of players on the same court you perfected and attuned to your abilities. Some faces wash away and others stick like sweet, trickling honey sliding smoothly down your esophagus. 

You can think of a few, some pristine in vexing clarity that clings to your skin and you’re diving head first into the thick of the ocean. Others stick to the curves of your shirt aligned to the star-crossed rotations of not Sendagaya, but in a cheap motel room on the second floor, looking out to the ocean side of Copacabana beach. Sugared eyes pressed into the nape and knobs that connect to your collarbone, hunger stirs like a three day old stew you can’t force yourself to slip between your lips and swallow. 

You remember those moments, the laughable, questionable moments that wait in the sun as you treach through the brittle quicksand slowing your every movement. 

Oh, and what becomes of you when you forget them, both the good and bad. Shouyou quickly learns the best way to avoid confrontation is to stop thinking at all. 

*

“Shouyou-kun.” 

Bed sheets sprawled against the bed in an unflattering manner. Sweat dampening the curls once dusted under the lingering hand, spreading across his once naked chest. God falters on the resting morning sun, spotted from miles away sprinting across the horizon in a three-foot legged race. 

A sauve smile, matted in the exhaled devastation of Rio’s long nights. Tracing along the arches of the Rio-Niterói Bridge connecting Rio and Shouyou. 

“You’re awake.” He says, a lazy movement gracefully sliding the bed sheets. Oikawa in the shining rapid pace sentiment of brilliance, he’s attainable. Weakened by the brandishing moon gliding along the strength of his legs, hollow and tan from the evening sun that Shouyou gathered in his coveting hands. 

“And you’re not in bed.” 

Neon lights blind the roads, frolicking with freezing rain dead into the night. The morning. Shouyou leans against the window, humidity revealing itself gruesome insides and peeling away it’s attire worn to the memorable moment, he sits against the only source of proper air conditioning in the motel. 

“It’s hot.” 

A chuckle. But gritty and thrown up in chunks of alluring and fastening temptations twirl in a midnight baton across the room and dashing past the dark. “Ah, Shouyou-kun.” He just says, eyes glittering in what he believes to be mortal sin tapping outside their tinted window of the motel room. 

Lust settles in speckles on a red velvet cake, icing charismatically scrawled in cursive, your word against his. Come back to bed, he yearns. Do you yearn back, or do you go forward. That answer cannot be answered while you're sitting, the humidity rages on and the crack of an open window lets breeze seep into the corners of the universe you wish to keep away. 

Moonlight sheathes its sword against the bone of his cheek, is it moments like this that you wish to remember? 

*

It begins with a Brazilian Passion fruit and Mango smoothie. He wakes up, feels the sun kiss his face sloppily and decides to face the morning in an unopposed Samba dance battle around the wooden floors creaking with protest from old age. He’s alone, Pedro having moved out most of his bedroom necessities and the whirring noise from the cheap blender Pedro let him keep. Only because his girlfriend probably had tons of blenders waiting for him to use. He sits back, frozen mangoes and passion fruits fight back against the blades and Rio walks along the boardwalk facing away from his apartment window. 

Heat makes headway for Shouyou’s skin and he waves himself with the fan discarded to his side. Then, the doorbell rings. Shouyou stops the blender, which slows down like a ferris wheel sitting neatly in front of the churro front shop that sells hot, steaming churros filled with chocolate and warms up your hand like sunset visiting your silhouette against the boardwalk’s solid structure. 

He unlatches the lock and opens the door, unable to peek through the eyehole. It’s that simple morning glory that storms through the door of his apartment. 

“Atsumu?” 

Standing on the yellow doormat fluorescent with purple hummingbirds fluttering in mid-air is Miya Atsumu. He’s comparatively pale, Shibuya’s rainy weather casting a frown on his skin. Atsumu shrugs close, trench coat hanging loosely on his broad shoulders, sunlight walking along his taunt jaw and Shouyou almost drops the Passion fruit and Mango smoothie. 

Atsumu puts a hand on the door frame, “Long time no see stranger.” 

“What are you doing here?” He crosses his arms. Atsumu tilts his head, he knows the answer and yet insists that Shouyou tug him closer and reach into his trachea and yank it from his larynx. 

“I almost got lost, finding my way to yer apartment.” He bulldozes past Shouyou’s wall of defenses, which wasn’t much. Dragging in a suitcase and an overnight bag haphazardly across his arm behind him. “Love what you’ve done to the place. And a great view.” He points outwardly to the open windows, and the wind teases his hair as the breeze sweeps a hurricane into the living room. 

“Atsumu.” He repeats. No honorifics. Ah. Shouyou doesn’t remember saying his voice like that. With meaning, an agenda behind the crossed arms and boulders blocking his way. “What are you doing here?” 

He lets go of the daylight crushed between the fists of his hands, and Atsumu smiles, correction he has the actual nerve to throw Shouyou a smile. 

“Brazil.” He ventured. “It’s a nice place, nice people. It’s perfect for you.” 

Shouyou, what do you say next? “It is. But I don’t know about you. It doesn’t seem like the place you would willingly travel to, travel halfway across the world to just say hello.” 

He narrows his eyes, focusing on the way Atsumu’s jaw throws itself off Pedra da Gavea, the highest mountain in Brazil. He looks down, feet swallowing themselves into eternity and the murky waters that roar in his ear. 

*

“Do you wanna know why I came to Brazil?” Atsumu confesses. 

Shouyou sits back, daylight humming a soft melody. “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.” 

Then it’s settled. 

*

Have the memories returned? Do they flood up your nostrils as you cough up boiling water? Shouyou does not forget. When he first met Miya Atsumu as he stared down at him with disgust, laced with ignorant interest. They are not acquaintances, enemies by the least. Kageyama had mentioned him a few while dwelling on the All-Japan Youth Training Camp. He’s more of a nuisance to Kageyama, once he told him about how he called him a “goody-two shoes”. Shouyou cackled for hours, never letting go on that dig. 

But if Kageyama was the “goody-two shoes” of the court, obeying the rules and laws that grant all players admission, then Atsumu was the complete opposite. He defies orders and is sent straight to hell then is expelled because no one can handle him. Not even the devil. He lets the court come to him and the rest of the world wishes to be the one crawling on his feet begging for mercy. 

Shouyou is not one of them, when they first met. They were nothing to each other. Shouyou was just another opponent who got in Atsumu’s way and Atsumu appeared to be too eager for the taking as Shouyou had reached the finish line first. 

But who reaches the finish line no longer matters. It’s the longing in his eyes, or the way he lifts him without anyone’s help. He carries him with gluttony, a surplus of hunger deviating from his pupil, crossing over the bridge to his cornea. 

Shouyou takes those memories and chucks them out the window, hoping Atsumu will sweep along with it. 

*

Atsumu still resides in his living room, fiddling with his name tag on the handle of his suitcase. “Should I go?” 

Shouyou by now has had the solitude and prime time to think, and collect his thoughts. He can choose to be sane and kind or kick him out, for what it was worth because he is a terrible person. But would Atsumu do the same, if he came knocking at his door in the middle of the night? 

“You don’t have to.” Shouyou washes the blender, “leave, right away.” 

Atsumu brightens slightly, but it’s enough that the devious smile returns and Shouyou doesn’t know what to think. _So never think again._ “What changed?” 

He halts. Why? You ask yourself and the answer shrugs right in front of your eyes and dashes into a five-hundred meter sprint across the world, and never returns to Brazil, to you. 

“I don’t know.”

*

An hour later, not a week later. Atsumu remains on his couch, deathly clutching his suitcase like he’s hiding a body in it and he wonders how the hell he got back airport security in that case. Shouyou wants to ask, but look at what happened last time. “My flight got canceled.” Atsumu announces, and almost like fate planned it. That’s rhetorical, of course it did, that’s the role of fate in the universe. A clatter of thunderstorm, and rain patters harshly along the windowsill. 

“Ah. I see.” He replies. Atsumu gets on the phone call with what he assumes is the airline. He struggles in a one-way conversation in English and he almost offers himself to speak with the airline office. After a frustrated sigh and a switch to Japanese, he hangs up. 

“I can’t get a refund. I haveta’ wait for the next flight which is booked for the next week.” 

Shouyou flips up the sink knob. “You’re welcome to stay.”

Atsumu smiles, perhaps genuine, perhaps plastic like the rest of the facade he tends to put up in defense the majority of the time. “You can give me a tour of Rio, how about that?” 

No. Shouyou desperately wants to say. “Sure.” He says instead. 

*

Shouyou sits in his own demise. What was he thinking, letting Atsumu become his unofficial, temporary roommate? Atsumu is currently rummaging around his fridge. The japanese national anthem plated softly on his lips, Shouyou is certain he’s humming it wrong. He discovers the Pé-de-moleque in the back, right behind the week old Chinese food he and Pedro ordered. Atsumu begins a dramatic retelling of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ with his mouth as he chews into the brazilian candy. 

“What is this stuff?” He asks mid chew, and little peanut crumbs fly from his mouth and Shouyou has to take cover. 

Shouyou hands him a napkin to wipe his mouth, “It’s Pé-de-moleque, a brazilian candy made with peanuts and rapadura _._ ” He says, managing not to trip over the words in Porteguese. Atsumu appears to be stunned like it was revealed to him that his favorite pet died, his goldfish named Derek got flushed down the automatic toilet. 

“Oh.” He says. His face starts to look funny, like he’s trying to embrace the taste around his tongue but at the same time wants to spit it at Shouyou’s face. 

“Is there anything you want to do?” Shouyou asks. 

Atsumu sticks his tongue like it’s made out of plasma and makes a noise in a poor attempt to swallow, and sets down the candy. “You have cable?”

They plop down on the couch and rifle through channels, majority are in Portuguese with English subtitles which won’t do good for Atsumu and they ensue in a cat fight over the remote and continue to bicker over whether or not they should watch ‘The notebook’. “No.” Shouyou says flatly. 

“I think yes.” Atsumu parrots. 

They watch ‘The Notebook’ in Portuguese with English subtitles, Shouyou understands the basic conversation, then goes to read captions. He also realizes that he failed English in high school. Atsumu appears to be sniffing, and when Shouyou points to the trickling tears ejecting from his eyeballs he quickly wipes them away. I’m not crying he says, as more tears of grief are shed. 

Nonetheless, Atsumu cries, Shouyou pulls on the tassels of the nearest pillow until he can hear the pillow begging for him to stop. And he stops. The movie plays in the background, the gruelling afternoon transforms into a day. Time passes, but not for you. You are stuck in a weird place of agitation and the walls confining this feeling begin to shrink and Shouyou follows. Did you cry Shouyou? Not, not yet. 

*

Feet sinking in sand, a quick intake of air. Two hearts, both belonging to you spread across the ocean, plummeting into the depths of mouse-traps lying under the heels of your feet, you wish for good luck to come to you, preferably in a white carrier pigeon or a stork clutching a baby ready to spill good fortune. 

Is the feeling similar to Japan, where you signed the non-disclosure agreement to another world, one without Copacabana beach? Christ the Redeemer glows in Brazil humiliation, the one where even Shouyou bows his head at the sight of such hesitation. 

According to Wikipedia and the immediate response of the google search engine and the shitty VPN service he bought two days before his trip, the statue is thirty-eight meters up in the sky, taller even when Shouyou bounces on a Pogo stick and caresses the clouds that evaporate in his hands. 

(“Why did you choose Brazil?”)

*

For the next morning he rises as normal. Stirs a heavy cup of black coffee, the crinkle of plastic brushing against his fingers, as he’s careful not to wake up Atsumu, tangled in a mount of pillows and passed out on the living room couch. Shouyou peers over at the disheveled sight while mixing the sugar located in the bottom cabinet. 

Wisps waterfall in unattractive curls over his eyes, he could probably come closer and notice how long his eyelashes are. He doesn’t. Come any closer. He stays as far away as humanly possible. He’s not ugly, nor is he in line to run away across the world and become America’s Next Top Model. If Atsumu did decide to join crossroads with the devil and sell his soul to become America’s Next Top Model, he could do it. That is not humanly impossible. 

Atsumu snorts, and shoots up dazed and confused. He scrunches his eyes close as he’s grasping Brazil, Shouyou. “Good morning.” Shouyou interrupts his deep thinking, probably not a lot of intellectual thinking being done on his part though.

His (non) intellectual thinking continues as he grabs hold of the arm panel to steer himself out of the deep end he’s created with orange, the color of artificial food coloring throw pillows. “Why’d you haveta’ wake me up so early?” 

“It’s almost ten thirty.” 

Atsumu doubts him. “No it’s not.” 

“Yes it is.”

Atsumu gains the ultimate strength to search for his phone, camping out on the table right next to him. His face squints like a baby panda when they’re first born but Atsumu comes across like he just received a notification on his phone that his pet goldfish Derek has been brought back to life. 

He groans, “yes it is.” 

Shouyou opens his pantry, it’s been emptied out except for the egg carton that feels too light and a jug of skim almond milk because Pedro was lactose intolerant and still insisted he have his bowl of cheerios in the morning. “Are you hungry?” 

A rumble of his stomach he assumes. He hopes. It’s not raining outside. “There’s nothing in yer pantry.” 

“That’s right. I haven’t gone grocery shopping in over a week.” 

“But I’m hungry.” A whine slips through his voice, deep and he clears his throat. 

Shouyou raises the brim of his coffee to his lips and frowns. It needed more sugar. “We can just order in.” 

Atsumu jumps up, most likely bewildered and unfamiliar with the different delivery system called Ubereats which they literally have in Japan. He doesn’t tell him that though. Mirth pinkens like Cave Amadeu Moscate champagne spilled across the sunset that hasn’t passed through his apartment. 

“You can do that?” 

“Yes.” 

A grin stretches across Copacabana beach and knocks everyone in its path. “Great.” 

*

According to Wikipedia and the closest public library that’s only a five minute walk without his bike, Iguazu Falls is the largest waterfall that lies on the border of Argentina province and Brazil. Two paths intercept on a cool night that the hair on your skin sticks up as you shiver, warm breath tastes like cheap beer against his lips. 

Argentina kisses your stomach, a butterfly caress along the groove of your hip and hazel marbles grab your hand and tug you into an intoxicating kiss. Oh. Are those the moments you truly wanted to remember? 

Shouyou glides along the peaceful waves of Copacabana beach, the ocean doesn’t swallow him whole, but Iguazu Falls does, and so does Argentina. “Oikawa Tooru.” 

He awakens, Atsumu sits in front of him, eyes glued to the screen. “What did you say?”

A lick of a grin slices through his teeth, Argentina crashes and sweeps you into oblivion. “That’s yer old highschool rival, from what’s that school called again? Seijoh?” 

Lips flush against the base of your neck and Shouyou pinches himself. 

“Yeah.” 

Atsumu’s expression is weird, which is nothing out of the ordinary given the distressed glance he gave Shouyou when he told him that he has to pee outside yesterday. “Yer friend’s aren’t ya?” 

No. Shouyou thinks of late nights and Rio’s warmest nightclub where evil hisses from it’s cages and your worst nightmare comes true. “I suppose.” 

Atsumu looks like he’s chewing bark but doesn’t say anything else and returns to playing Clash Royale on his phone. 

*

Shouyou is reading the news. He is not reading the news. Atsumu is taking a shower. It appears to be already twelve in the afternoon. Shouyou attempts to pretend to be invested in the world around him, sitting in his studio apartment looking out to the bay of Copacabana beach. 

He gets hungry. Pursues in a self debate over whether or not he should remove himself from off the couch and browse to eat lunch. He also thinks about volleyball. Which is not unusual. 

“Could you hand me a towel?” Atsumu asks from inside the bathroom. 

Many things happen in the next moment, somewhat memorable but mesmerizing as the door opens ajar and reveals a shirtless Miya Atsumu standing in sunlight and the grandeur of the hungry sun. Oh. But before he can wonder about and his mind performs figure eight’s over the sight, Atsumu smiles and shuts the door. 

Shouyou lies perfectly still as time seizes his lungs and eats them for lunch, leaving him with no place to breathe. 

*

“Can we go somewhere?” Atsumu is fresh out of the shower. He can smell the peaches he probably scrubbed on his skin numerous times or the cotton candy shampoo he brought in his suitcase gently lathered and rinsed under steaming water. 

“Where would you like to go?” 

“Literally fuckin’ anywhere.” 

Shouyou gathers his phone and himself, or a part of it at least and Atsumu trails behind. His bike is parked in the back, close to the bridge continuing for miles before you hit Ipenama beach. They didn’t have exactly a great source of transportation. He tugs Atsumu towards the metro station two blocks away. The walk is painlessly short, but the heat grows worse as they reach the station. Shouyou’s board shorts begin to cling to the back of his legs and Atsumu’s visor that covers his eyes appear irritated as he continues to swat the mosquito who persists on sucking his blood out like the vampire from Twilight. 

“Atsumu. Stop it, you’re causing a scene.” As Atsumu practically drops his phone and Shouyou has to pull him along. Sweat sticks to his forehead like instinct, the instinct to throw his head in a bucket of ice cold water. 

They purchase two tickets, which is cheap luckily, Atsumu gapes his mouth when Shouyou buys his ticket. “It’s a ten minute ride.” 

The stop to Leblon beach begins to board as Shouyou and Atsumu clash with the tourists and strangers hopping onto the train. It’s crowded. There are no windows. Of course there isn’t. Atsumu holds onto a metal pole that’s stopping him from crashing into the older lady next to him. 

The ride is short. As they stop off the station before they know it and Atsumu is the one having to pull Shouyou out of the mass of tourists migrating like a flock of crows around the station. It’s more crowded, and they stick close to each other and it’s weird. Not bad. But weird. Something shifts in Shouyou’s guts traveling through his heart and squeezing it tightly like a python seizing its prey. 

“Do you have any clue where we’re going?” Atsumu blinks tremendously as if the sun is playing tricks on his eyesight through the visor. 

“The mall is close by.” And Atsumu stops in his tracks, imitating the same expression he conjured when he bit into the Pé-de-moleque. 

Then it slides away like Argentina, only faster and slippery and pliable between the wake of his hands that he could bend it to his will. “Yer takin me shoppin’? 

Shouyou frowns. Isn’t that what every tourist is supposed to do, go shopping? “Well yeah. I thought maybe you might want to buy some souvenirs for your family or Osamu-san?” 

Atsumu’s eye cripples tragically, as he’s standing in the midst of the sidewalk, a tantrum teetering around his lips. 

“Alright.” He rolls his eyes, acting as if Shouyou is one who dragged him here in the first place. 

*

The inside of the mall is huge, three tiers of endless stores and restaurants that almost seem like they never end for miles. Shouyou went here once, with Pedro when he first arrived in Brazil but he’s never taken apart the space, detail by detail and sank it all in. Atsumu is unhappy, and unimpressed. He appears to be mesmerized with the glass panels that radiate soak in the lush brilliance of the sun from outside. There’s also an air conditioning vent right below him. 

“Where would you like to go first?” He asks. 

Atsumu nudges towards the closest souvenir shop. They browse around a few shops, Shouyou sorting through clothing and Atsumu holding a pair of sunglasses, bored. Shouyou also notices the amount of glances they’ve begun to receive in their direction. At first he wonders if there’s something on his face, a big fat pimple he somehow didn’t notice and Atsumu failed to kindly mention. But he remembers that he’s not in Sunmall Ichibancho mall in his own hometown of Miyagi. He’s in Rio, strolling through racks of clothing like he fits right in. 

Shouyou is delivered glances of curiosity, like he’s a small child wandering through the mall without his parents. On the other hand, whispers litter around Atsumu, he is a division one volleyball player in Japan, well known, and good looking enough. 

Good looking. He supposes so. He has a nice jawline, not too sharp that it cut his enemy in half but loud enough that you can flaunt with your head high and yell out to the world that you have a cutting jawline. His hair color is atrocious but if you look past it you can see the edges of his real color hiding under his dyed blonde locks perfectly disarranged in tangles around his head. Atsumu puts a hand through his strands, twisting and turning around his fingers. 

He is also Miya Atsumu, you’re not supposed to like him, the voice whispers in the back of his mind. 

That’s right. But ‘ _right’_ is subjective, it harshly twists your tongue and slashes in thin lines all corresponding to the ley lines of Brazil and Japan. Your options are weighed on a scale, too big to fit on the incandescent beaches of Copacabana where in your mind you are not ankle-deep in the waters, but bicycling through the steep hills of Miyagi. Where do you lie?

“Hey.” 

Atsumu is coming towards him, people their heads other hastily turn away. Visor in his hands, a quick brush of hand through his hair, already knotted from the last time. 

“Did you find anything you like?” 

Atsumu shrugs, hands empty except for his own baggage he brought. “Nah, too expensive.” 

“Hungry?” 

Atsumu changes, his shoulders straighten, not they weren’t before but even straighter. A chipped smile, but not broken but Atsumu cannot be glued back together if he cracks. Not for Shouyou. “Starving.” 

*

Shouyou is not rich. He does not own a million dollar empire that’s waiting for him in Japan. He won’t steeple his fingers together on his brown oak table and plan business investments with other millionaires. Though he did have his wallet pick-pocketed and stolen when he first stepped off the airplane and in the streets of Rio, he is not broke either. Atsumu uses google maps to find a comfort Japanese restaurant two blocks away from his apartment (he cannot truly use the word ‘their’, this is temporary after all). 

After wandering for a few hours at Leblon Mall, they headed back to the station which was less busy and their train had less than twenty people packed inside. Atsumu plays Clash Royale on his phone, visor low on his eyes despite them being inside, in an air conditioned place.

According to google maps, and Atsumu’s iphone that works faster than Shouyou’s flip phone, which does not have Clash Royale, the restaurant was less than a minute from the bay side of Copacabana beach. They enter, and are immediately ushered by a younger waitress who takes one look at Atsumu and tucks a curly strand of brown hair behind her ear shyly and leads them to a booth deeper into the restaurant. 

Atsumu takes it upon himself to smile and thank the waitress, an act of kindness that causes her to fumble with the menus in her hands before she practically sprints away to get their drinks. Atsumu returns to Shouyou, a soft snort, and says, “Did we do something?” 

Shouyou clenches his menu, “No, of course you obviously did something, you scared our waitress away.” More like Atsumu charmed her away. But you don’t tell him that do you? You would rather live in the breathing dissatisfaction that you shelter the facts next to your heart and beside the thymus. 

“She’ll come back. She never took our order.”

“Do you even know what you want to order?” 

“Nope.” 

Oh. Is this the part where you claim silence trickled in like poisonous fog? Or when silence plays its violin and provocatively Samba dances on their booth table. 

Atsumu figures out what he wants to drink. Shouyou uses google translate to decipher the menu they were given, which is in Portuguese. He’s been living in Brazil for almost two years, he’s moved past picking up the majority of basic conversation, it’s more of his English that’s terrible. “There’s fatty tuna rolls.” 

To say that Atsumu’s eyes glow like a light-bulb is an exaggeration. They burst. “I’ll have that.” 

Hinata orders a bowl of Sukiyaki and a dish of Spicy Bean Sprout Salad. The waitress returns, and communicates with Atsumu in English of their order, Atsumu orders a fruit juice he lists from the back of the menu. “Just water.” Shouyou requests and Atsumu stares at him bizarrely before rattling on with their dinner order as she scribbles hurriedly and smiles at Atsumu, taking off. 

“Come on Shouyou-kun.” He nudges, “don’t be so dull.” It’s a tease, butchered underneath his words and Shouyou wacks him with the menu. 

“Don’t be such a headache. How can people stand to take you out in public?” 

Atsumu leans back, enthralled in Shouyou’s words like he’s the most amusing thing he’s seen since watching paint dry, “But you did. Take me out.” He drawls, toying with the elastic rimming of the menu neatly tucked away. 

“That’s just me being nice.” He bites back. Luckily, their beverages arrive. And Shouyou takes a long sip just to invite silence back into the booth. 

Atsumu takes a long sip of his Strawberry Coconut Agua Fresca juice blend before speaking. “Is it?” 

He taps the booth like he’s Mozart playing Symphony No. 40 on the piano. Shouyou grunts unwillingly, and stirs the plastic straw pushing around the ice in his water. Brazil shoots up to heaven that lies in your wake, your single path, and you grin. For the first time. 

“Yes. It is.” 

Atsumu resumes to finish the fourteenth level of Clash Royale before the app crashes and he drops it on the floor. The mousy, cute waitress comes back, her dignity and self-preservation in store and bouncing their trays of food in her hands. Atsumu opens his mouth, not to retort a snide comeback, but to shovel fatty tuna rolls in his mouth and he hums in delight. Shouyou takes an eager bite as Brazil’s sunset drives by the windows of the restaurant and rinses away any thoughts meant to be spoken from both of their minds. 

*

With his stomach full, Shouyou makes no conversation, and neither does Atsumu. He mourns over the new crack in the corner of his phone and whispers prayers for it to magically repair itself overnight. Shouyou clumsily fits the key into the lock and they enter, it’s chillier. Hinata turns up the heat, and by now, night has robbed the sun and basked it in his dark terrors as shadows fall on Atsumu's eyes, swooping above. 

Atsumu crashes on the couch, lounging around lazily, focused on scrolling through twitter without glancing at the crack. Shouyou doesn’t know what to think. _So stop thinking at all._ He unknots his shoes, sliding them off in the entryway. 

“Atsumu.” 

A head turns from out of the sofa and peeks up. “Yeah?” 

“Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight? There’s heat in my room and the living room is freezing.” 

The many expressions dazzle every part of his face, Atsumu grabs a fuzzy throw pillow and smiles brightly despite the night falling on him he manages to lift the dark from overthrowing the glow that still remains. “Are you invitin’ me to sleep in yer bed?” 

Shouyou shrugs, “Why not?” 

He whispers a husky ‘wait a minute’ and disappears into the bathroom as Shouyou returns to his room. What is he doing? 

You are Hinata Shouyou, terrorized in your own home, invaded in your own property by a boy, who’s no longer a boy but a twenty-two year old rinsing his hands in your bathroom. You are not normal. No, normal doesn’t even begin to cover it. The bathroom door opens and artificial light pours like a glass of lemonade, shared over a Brazilian Tapioca-Flour Crepes sitting in metal seats of a food truck, eating up the ocean waves on Ipanema beach. 

A dip of the bed, a settle creak and a slip of the covers as the small of Shouyou’s back heats up, he faces away, as the curtains he’s faced towards twirl like a magic carpet. Perhaps it will animatedly come to live and sweep Shouyou and drop him in the middle of nowhere, where he can die of misery and in peace. Minutes pass, sirens wail and Rio’s moon winks moonlight at the corners of Atsumu’s eyelashes, which he notices as soon Atsumu’s breathing grows heavy and Shouyou wrestles to flip over. 

He would dare to call him breathtaking, but rather he’s bathed in moonlight and looks more vulnerable than before. Shouyou’s hand moves on it’s own. And he carefully rests a finger on his cheek. Hair falls from his forehead, rumpled and not so elegantly arranged. His theory is right. He has long eyelashes, it’s not bad. But performs blunt abdominal trauma on his stomach and he retracts away.

A snore. And then another. Miya Atsumu sleeps soundly in his bed. But underneath the layer of dirt and roots that push apart a heart is loneliness. Shouyou recognizes it, he’s met it before. Why was Atsumu here, in Brazil? 

You don’t wait for an answer, and deliberately sew together the sternum you took apart and decide that it’s best you sleep the other way for the rest of the night. 

*

“How’d you sleep?” 

Shouyou almost drops his mug. 

*

A few days have passed, the heater is still broken in the living room. Atsumu freezes to death. But that never ends up happening. He sleeps in Shouyou’s room for the next couple nights. And Shouyou wonders what he's ever done to deserve this punishment. Shouyou has a week off before his next game, but grows restless. Heitor is currently working out the plans of his engagement, giving him all the time in the world to relax and mentally prepare for the upcoming week. 

“Let’s play volleyball.” Atsumu suggests. 

Shouyou packs a bag and brings a volleyball, Atsumu offers Shouyou a visor which he accepts and places on his head and slides on a pair of sunglasses. According to Atsumu’s bitchy, cracked phone, Ipanema beach is only seven minutes away and they walk. It releases the tension of his muscles and Shouyou stretches upwards and the sun tilts its head back and throws its hands up into the sky. 

There is already an overabundance of nets set up along the beaches and Atsumu wiggles his sandaled toes into the hot baked sand. Shouyou fixes the strap of his backpack and they travel over to the next empty net. 

“It’s been a while.” Atsumu says. Shouyou shifts a questionable gaze that pierces right through as he adds, “Since we played together.” 

“This is our first time.” 

“Oh right. Then, playing volleyball on the same side of the net.” 

He’s not wrong. Desperation slips through the grain of sands, salt sticking into his toe nails. He removes his sandals and keeps them close. The last atrocity he needed was another stranger stealing his belongings. 

He pushes away his worries and tosses the ball to Atsumu, “pepper with me.” Atsumu ducks into his perfect passing form as they bump to each other, and then move onto hitting. Atsumu falls, arms flailing out when he moves further than two feet across the sand. 

(“Is this real?” A smug voice wraps around your waist and tugs you close, and not in a good way). 

(A hand on the hip, Shouyou stunned on earth, hands grappling his ankles and it’s quicksand and he’s quickly sinking.) 

“Yer not so terrible.” Atsumu lavishly grins like he didn’t just plant face first into the sand. 

Shouyou laughs, and it resonates with the ocean, storming across shore and disappearing in the air. “Can’t say the same for you, your egotistical personality got the better of you.” 

Atsumu lowers his eyes, the mesh of the net setting his eyes into a deep shade of brown and Shouyou feels the urge to look before it’s too late and he’s turned into stone. “You think I’m egotistical?” 

He doesn’t answer as a group of players enter their court and ask in Portuguese if they want to join them for a game of twenty-five. Atsumu is skeptical. But he wants to. He’s also an incredibly fast learner, able to pick subtle tones and follow instruction quickly. And they play, until the sun yearns for its love of the night and time passes, sand rubbing his ankles in the comforting way, the same way you find comfort in a plain bowl of Tamago Kake Gohan. 

Atsumu’s visor slips between his eyes a few times before he gets the hang of and for the first time, they engage in eye contact from the same side of the net, instead of across. The sun burns tenderly at the corners of his elbows, he should’ve brought sunscreen. Feet pleasantly dig into the sand, platform facing upward, it’s like the constellations of movements zigzagging to form the atmosphere, a court ruled by volleyball. 

Hours pass and Shouyou laughs at the few misfortunes that stumble along the way, including almost breaking his nose, over flying into a pile of sand. When Atsumu delivers him that same genuine, serene smile that walks along the border of glee, Shouyou’s heart does mysterious things. It’s nothing you think, because that’s the truth. 

*

Cheap beer dribbles between your lips, sand crunches underneath your sandals, and air is warmer than ever. You wonder where to go, and an arm wraps around you, and pulls you close. A meal shared between two old friends, charisma sinking its talons under the table, crawling up his legs. 

A whisper unhinged in the lips of Argentina and you stare back, and kiss him clumsily. The beer is sticky, and he wipes it away with a light, flirtatious smile and yanks you even closer until you can taste the beer wet and sticky on his own lips. 

Argentina does horrible things to you, you stay the night. And another night and find solace in the cheap motel looking out to the beach and wonder what it would be like to dive into the sand and when the wind spreads its arms, would you too drift away? Oikawa grins mischievously from the sheets, and Argentina seems closer than before. 

*

Atsumu continues to sleep on the other half of his bed, teaches himself how to make his own Brazilian Passion fruit and Mango smoothie and learns how make a variety of juice blends for Shouyou to wake to an empty side of the bed and the loud whirring noises of the blender at eight in the morning. Shouyou some days shoves his pillow around his ears and sings him to sleep and Atsumu joyfully dances around the kitchen. 

Other days, Shouyou joins him by his side, cooks grilled fish and eggs with furikake, because that is the only meal of the day, most important he may add that Atsumu somehow manages to screw up. Besides his healthy juice blends. 

Shouyou slowly begins to unveil the walls he builds for a nemesis and conquer of the land he lives in and becomes welcomed like it’s own. You deliberately shred all privacy you gear yourself with like armor, only this time, it begins to rust and is deemed useless and you throw it out the window into the lost sea traveling from Copacabana beach. 

A week passes by. Shouyou is the person who offers to go sightseeing. A pampered grin placated on Atsumu lips. Atsumu is also celebratory because his screen has been fixed. 

“Where are we goin’?” Atsumu asks as Shouyou pulls him into the train. Shouyou readjusts the straps to his small backpack tighter to his chest. In fear that anything could happen. 

Shouou presses a finger to his lips, “It’s a secret.” 

Atsumu breezily rolls his eyes, but no crude matter resides in his pupils as he huffs in absolute tragedy. Their ride is eleven minutes, as they leap off the station and use Atsumu’s phone to direct themselves to the cable station. Praia Vermelha, also known as the Red Beach, carried on for miles in transoluate rocketing waves that if Shouyou got any closer he could hear the siren’s song luring him closer to the waters. Atsumu widens, his eyes hungrily devouring everything in his line of vision. “We’re climbin’ a mountain?"

“No, we’re taking a cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain. The walk up to the mountain is an hour. If you feel like taking a hike, you’re more than welcome to.” And he points to the line of hikers, prepping for their heavy journey up the trail. Atsumu shuts up. 

But also, Atsumu hasn’t quite figured out _when_ to shut up. “That’s a dumb name, who calls it Sugarloaf Mountain?” He wrinkles his nose a bit, and Shouyou ignores him as he pays for his ticket. Due to his withering pride with every moment they spend together, Atsumu throws a tantrum until Shouyou lets him pay for his own ticket. He gets his way. 

“Look it up.” 

“I barely have three bars.” 

Shouyou sticks out a tongue as they take a big step into the empty cable car. Apparently they’d been the last of the twenty minute shift, leaving them alone, dispensed in the air. The chains clink loudly and they both quieten. And then they’re moving. He feels like his stomach did a cartwheel and hovers over the window, admiring the view. 

Atsumu rests his elbow on the edge of the window, the seat across him. They don’t say much about the ride up. It leaves Shouyou time to think and think about several ways how to not throw up.

*

His legs are shaky from the ride as he clambers out. He wants to say something, a wordless comeback that all the words he’s thinking spew out of his mouth in perfect arrangement. But he’s speechless. Atsumu is already hugging the ledge as he snaps photos and takes a selfie with his phone. 

(Shouyou-kun, Let’s take a picture!”). 

Atsumu’s smile submerges with the mountain, he is the mountain he imagines. Shouyou does not tread carefully through the rocks and patches of slippery points where he’s grasping the end of a branch to heave himself up. Atsumu is a lot of things, his resilience shows no mercy, and yet he plucks a path of kindness and generosity towards Shouyou. The view is mesmerizing such as Wikipedia mentioned. He is at the peak of his bravery, where the swooping gust of nausea blows away and he’s just a boy, who has yet to prove himself to be a man, in Brazil. 

Perhaps he does deserve the title of ‘breathtaking’ rewarded to him. Visor tucking away furious tangles he almost ran his hands through. “The view.” Atsumu says. 

Then Christ of Redeemer pins itself in solitude, waving a lonely wave, is it saddened by their lack of presence? 

The view is breathtaking. 

*

Miya Atsumu. You think. It’s hard not to. He lives in your apartment, uses the same spoon as you do when you mix your Chia Banana and kale juice blend. He sleeps quietly on his side of the bed he creates. It wasn’t there before. He’s everywhere. And you still can’t figure out why.

*

“Shouyou-kun.” 

“Yeah?”

“I’m leaving Brazil. My flight is in two days.” 

*

Shouyou can’t pinpoint the moment he decided that he enjoyed volleyball. That wasn’t a choice, it was instinct. 

“Come with me.” Shouyou says softly in the middle of the night. He lies. It’s only an hour after the sun collapses and the moon winks at him. 

Atsumu blinks awake from under the blanket. “What?” 

“We’re going to the beach.” 

Oh. His face replies and he gets dressed. Atsumu steps out of the building five minutes later, Black and gold Black Jackals whipping in the air, as the wind howls, is it a taunt or a grace bestowed between good luck? 

The sand welcomes him, and Shouyou walks towards the nets, but far enough that the black netting stares beady daggers in his chest. It’s quiet, ripples of water lapping at his feet. Atsumu is tired. “What are we doing here?”

“Why did you come here?”

Atsumu drops, and the walls reconstruct around the borders of his taunt jawline, taunt in slight exasperation. “You dragged me here, are you okay?” He grins, pulled to the drag of his curved jaw. Not real. 

“No, why did you come here, to Brazil?” 

“Do you really want to know?”

the tethers of Shouyou’s heart unravel and he can finally admit it. “Yes.” 

“To confess my undying love to you.” 

Shouyou whips his head, his eyes are not deep dishes of brown, they illuminate like witch light in the darkest parts of the sea. “No.” 

“And to convince you to come back with me to Japan.” 

“No.” 

A step forward, and you take a step back, sand grazes along his heel and it’s welcoming right now. “Why?” 

“You already know the answer.” 

Shouyou doesn’t know what to do next. So he does the worst thing he can do that comes to mind. He kisses him. It’s not Argentina, curving you close until you don’t feel the weight of your lips. It’s gentle, fervent. Atsumu grasps him tight, moonlight opening its arms finally and hauls away from the dangers of the sea. Atsumu makes a noise, it settles neatly in the back of his throat and tips his chin back, kissing him further. Starlight dazzles his cheek and he caresses it without worry. 

You stay. It’s this moment that matters to you. 

*

There are no sorrow good-byes, no last minute jump and hugs across the airport. Shouyou watches him disappear, sees him fade away in the crowd of tourists, and he smiles. 

You don’t cry, tears are for the weary, this is not a forever good-bye. Brazil’s sun hugs you to fill the empty void you waved away to halfway across the world. He will return. You, the sun and Miya Atsumu, no matter how long it takes. 

Breathtaking, is the only word that fills you with hope as you wave back. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> We have reached the end. 
> 
> Congrats. I apologize if the ending seems a little rushed... my deepest condolences. the pacing was rough near the end as i was trying to wrap it up. I have spent copious hours, researching the lands of Copacanaba peach, and the tourist attraction in Rio, for it is Hinata's home and i often reference figurative language towards things that are Brazilian. I've been meaning to write this fic for a long time. I believe the title, sums up Atsumu. This is my first time writing from hinata's pov and therefore i will never do it again. I hope he isn't too poopy. Honestly, i had planned on writing a full oihina brazil fic and then atsuhina being minor.. which mostly is still present for the future, but here i am, adding crumbs of oihina brazil fling. 
> 
> If u have reached the end, thank you. I thank you, this was a fun story to write, the places they went to I spent a long time researching, to try my best to be accurate. If there are any Brazilian readers.. i am sorry. I hope you find this enjoyable! 
> 
> the title is a verse from the bible, I am not religious, but I feel this line really captured the essence of atsumu's determination of following hinata to brazil. and the line absolutely riveting and stunning. So here we are. 
> 
> till then. this is a wrap to another fic
> 
> Again, if you enjoyed this fic, pls don't be afraid to leave a comment or a kudos, I get an immense feel of joy when i read what you amazing people have to say!!
> 
> twitter: @sarahartzzz  
> writing twt: @atsuhinass_


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